Dismissed

No. 13962092 W Ex Hav Ram Shankar v. U.O.I. Thru. Secy. Ministry of Defence New Delhi and 3 Others

Allahabad HC24 Jan 2025WRIA/961/2025

Case brief

AI extract

What is this about?

Ex-serviceman challenged Armed Forces Tribunal's rejection of his successive claim for rounding off disability pension to 70%, having earlier been granted 50% rounded-off disability element for life. High Court found no illegality in the Tribunal's assessment of composite disabilities and dismissed the writ petition.

What the court decided

AI extract

No. 13962092 W Ex Hav Ram Shankar vs… — Pension and Retirement Benefits | Allahabad HC (2025)

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Neutral Citation No. - 2025:AHC-LKO:4815-DB

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Court No. - 1

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Case :- WRIT - A No. - 961 of 2025

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Petitioner :- No. 13962092 W Ex Hav Ram Shankar Respondent :- U.O.I. Thru. Secy. Ministry Of Defence New Delhi And 3 Others

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Counsel for Petitioner :- Parijat Mishra Belaura Counsel for Respondent :- A.S.G.I.

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Hon'ble Attau Rahman Masoodi,J. Hon'ble Subhash Vidyarthi,J.

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Heard Sri Parijat Mishra Belaura, the learned counsel for the petitioner, Sri S.B. Pandey, learned Senior Advocate/Deputy Solicitor General of India assisted by Sri Dev Rishi Kumar, Advocate appearing on behalf of the Union of India and perused the records.

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By means of the instant petition the petitioner has assailed the legality of the judgment/order dated 04.07.2023, rendered by Armed Forces Tribunal in Original Application No.1130 of 2020, whereby the original application for the reliefs sought therein claiming disability pension rounding off to 70% has been rejected by learned Tribunal.

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Two significant aspects of the matter have been noticed by learned Tribunal in the case at hand, firstly, that the original application instituted before the learned Tribunal in the sequence of litigation was a successive claim. The previous original application filed by the petitioner which had sought inter alia the same very relief was decided by means of judgment dated 04.11.2022 and the same attained finality and, secondly, on the aspect of disability element, the learned Tribunal as against the relief prayed in the original application

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i.e. the relief Clause 4, the relief to the extent of 50% disability pension was granted to him for life with effect from 01.08.2009.

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Learned counsel for the petitioner has argued that the said relief rounded off to 50% was prayed by way of composite relief and in absence of any adjudication by the learned Tribunal, the judgment would not operate as a res-judicata.

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In any case, the fresh original application came to be instituted at the instance of the petitioner before the learned Tribunal, which has been rejected by means of the impugned judgment. In paragraph 13 of the judgment impugned herein, the learned Tribunal has recorded as under:

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" 13. We also find that RMB has assessed composite assessment for all disabilities @ 60% for five years in which first, second and third disabilities of the applicant are considered as attributable to/aggravated by military service and fourth and fifth disabilities of the applicant are considered as neither attributable to nor aggravated by military service (NANA) and accordingly, PCDA (P) Allahabad has granted disability element of pension to the applicant @ 40% for life duly rounded off to 50% for life rightly as per rules based on the attributability/aggravation of the first three disabilities. Since, the applicant is already in receipt of 50% disability element of pension as per rules as sanctioned by the pension sanctioning authority, applicant’s prayer to grant 60% disability element duly rounded off to 75% is not justified. Therefore, Sapper Mohinder Singh (supra) case law is not applicable in the present case."

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From a plain reading of paragraph extracted above, it is clear that benefit of 40% permanent disability pension has been granted to the petitioner after due consideration of his temporary and permanent disability rounded off to 50% for life.

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On a careful consideration of all the aspects of matter, we are in full agreement with the reasoning as well as the observations made by the learned Tribunal on such an aspect of the matter. Once the learned Tribunal has appreciated the composite

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disabilities, permanent as well as temporary and the rounding off has been quantified at 50%, in such a view taken by the learned Tribunal, we do not gather any illegality or infirmity calling for interference in exercise of extraordinary writ jurisdiction vested in this court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, more particularly when the original application instituted by the petitioner was a successive one.

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The writ petition is bereft of any merit and the same is dismissed.

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[Subhash Vidyarthi, J.] [A.R. Masoodi, J.]

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Order Date :- 24.1.2025 Ram.

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Digitally signed by :- RAM SINGH High Court of Judicature at Allahabad, Lucknow Bench

No. 13962092 W Ex Hav Ram Shankar v. U.O.I. Thru. Secy. Ministry of Defence New Delhi and 3 Others

Case brief

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No. 13962092 W Ex Hav Ram Shankar v. U.O.I. Thru. Secy. Ministry of Defence New Delhi and 3 Others

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